


Around Sanity's Corner

by strixus



Category: Spy vs Spy
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:17:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strixus/pseuds/strixus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to Hands On. White makes a run for it, with all his baggage in tow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Observation Report - - Record Post Date – xL9∆»B15 – GPS Record

His mind was filled with a constant litany of curses as he drove, eyes trying to stay fixed on the winding road and the speedometer at once. His hands shook, and more than once he had pulled over to retch on the side of the road. Dry clothes and the heat turned to max did nothing to stop him from shivering constantly. Every joint in his body ached and he felt as if he had been beaten from head to toe. Yet still he drove, trying to fight his urge to speed, wanting nothing else but to put miles behind him.

Shit, shit, fuck, damn it, mother fucker! Why did he - and with that his brain froze, and his stomach heaved violently – he barely managed to get the window down before he dry heaved again. There was nothing in his stomach to bring up but acid. Every time his mind turned back, started to try to think his way through what had happened he felt nauseas and overcome with panic.

He had kicked Black in the face the minute the other agent had untied his legs. It was reflex, more than anything; his mind had been too confused to think the action through. His brain was undone, still half lost in flashback, and the only thoughts he had managed were of escape. Yet as he had run out of Black's apartment, taking the steps three at a time, he realized he had to do something, or he would have the entire Black Nation intelligence service on his back as soon as Black awoke.

A crazed plan had half formed in his mind, and he had followed it through without thinking it through. He had packed a duffle, changed into dry clothes, then grabbed his weapons and car keys before bolting down the back stairs of his apartment building. He had driven, slowly, to Black's building, then returned to the apartment. Black had still been unconscious where White had left him, a huge goose egg of a bruise swelling on the bottom of his jaw. As if in a dream, he first carried Black down stairs, then placed him in the trunk of his car, before carefully binding the enemy spy hand and foot. He slammed the trunk as if in a dream, then returned to Black's apartment.

He cleaned every surface of the bathroom, gathered up the ruins of his clothes, found his knives and gun and then began to leave. His instincts made him stop and retrieve the duffle and the DVD and gun as well, which he threw into the back seat of his car along with the other items. A final trip up the stairs and into the apartment completed his task. He soaked the electrical outlet in the bathroom with rubbing alcohol, then lit one of Black's cigarettes and set it burning near the pool of fluid. Twenty minutes, and the apartment would be in flames.

His next steps had been even easier. As he drove out from town, he thumbed open the sat-phone he used to contact command, and dialed a number. He spoke for a few minutes with his handler, spinning a web of lies a mile thick. He requested use of a safe house nearly two hundred miles from where he was, then requested a free and clear – no tracking in the house. Command gave it to him, without question. He thanked them, unnecessarily, then finally spoke the words that he knew might be his last to command. "Agent request, going dark." He was one of maybe ten agents who could make that request. No communication, no tracking, no check-in, no tails or shadows: going dark meant being on your own. The request was acknowledged, and he clicked off the phone, then threw it out of the window.

He was fifty miles away when the panic overwhelmed his brain and he started vomiting.

***

The pain welled up through Black's skull before consciousness did. He was half awake, his mind swimming through shadows, memory, and most of all, pain. His jaw ached, a dull throb that ran through all his teeth and face punctuated with every beat of his heart. Dimly, beyond that pain, he was aware of the rest of his body, a dull sea of aches and pains, new and old, feeling cramped and bent like a rag doll stuffed into a coffee tin.

But instinct was as strong in him as it was in any field agent that had lasted as long as he had, and he kept every muscle in his body relaxed, his breathing even, his eyes closed. Consciousness rolled over him in waves, arising and retreating fleetingly. Memory surged, in flashes of shadow and the haze of concussive amnesia. White's eyes, so clear, looking at him with the blank terror of a civilian, dominated his mind's eye. A sea of other thoughts swelled in him, all surrounded by that throbbing pain in his head. And noise.

The noise was a loud roar, a thrumming vibration that shook his bones, and it sliced through everything but the pain. It and the pain sang in his head, until at last he caught the melody. Consciousness ripped through his mind along with self awareness. The sound. He knew that sound. He was in the trunk of a car, a moving car. He was bound hand and foot, with sloppy loose knots that felt as if they had been tied by a civilian hand. He still had his sleeve knife, though couldn't reach it, and could feel the comforting presence of a few other hidden weapons on his person. He was missing his boots, but that had never stopped him. Whomever had captured him had been very sloppy.

The stab of memory hit him hard enough that it physically hurt. White had captured him. When he had untied White's legs, White had knocked him unconscious. Impossible, he thought to himself through the haze of the pain in his head. White knows better, White is better. He's handed me over to some clumsy handler. I'll be out of these ropes in a few minutes and out of the car the next time it stops. Then I'll – his mind froze on that thought, and all he could remember was White, curled in a shivering mass on his bathroom floor, eyes filled with terror, raw and unfettered.

The car made a turn, and he felt his weight shift in the enclosed darkness of the trunk, rough interior fibers under him. He swallowed hard, aware of the dryness of his mouth, even though the air was relatively humid and cool. White's eyes looked back at him out of his memory, unseeing and fear glazed. That feeling welled inside Black, the one he knew to be something he shouldn't feel, the one which had gotten him in this position in the first place, and all he could do was sigh. White did have him. White, reduced to making stupid mistakes even a rookie wouldn't make, driving to who knew where, with Black in the trunk of his car.

Black winced, and felt guilt. I did this, he thought. I did this with my own stupidity and bumbling. I could run, but to what point? To leave White to whatever I've set lose in his head? Black respected White too much - no, that wasn't the word and he knew it – to run like his instincts were howling for him to.

He flexed his wrists a bit, stretching the knots enough that he could probably have simply slipped out of them, letting the blood flow back into his hands and find a comfortable position. Where ever you are going, he thought, when you open this trunk I'll be laying here. And then we can talk.


	2. Observation Report - - Record Post Date – xL9∆»B15 – GPS Record cnt

The sat-nav told White he was just more than two thirds of the way to his destination. It's friendly, chirpy sounding female voice happily reported to him his progress, as well as the name of the upcoming small coastal town he was about to pass through. He felt as if he had been driving for days. His stomach had only just stopped heaving every few moments, something that made one hundred miles feel like over a thousand, and his mouth tasted of vomit, stomach acid, and blood. He was still shivering, though only in fits, and, for the first time since he had regained enough sense to think, he realized he was hungry. It had been nearly a full day since he had last eaten, he realized, and his blood sugar could probably crawl under a snake with headroom to spare.

I should find a roadside gas station and grab something, he thought. However, he paused, fingers hovering over the sat-nav controls, with a second realization. He would need supplies at his destination, even if someone at command managed to get there before him and stock the house with food. He quickly keyed in a request for the closest grocery and hardware stores. The happy female voice changed his route, directing him to the little shopping mall in the middle of the small town.

Four fast turns and a stop light brought him to the little strip mall, the sort that it seemed every town on this coast had, and saw that it consisted of only four stores: some off brand local grocery store, a hardware store that seemed more bait and tackle than lawn care, a tack and feed store, and a generic ethnic food buffet. One stop shopping, he thought, at its finest.

His mind at least managed to prioritize and organize a list of the various things he needed from the expedition. Basic food staples were purchased; including some very locally grown produce, a jar of ancient looking peanut butter, tinned fish of a few kinds, and some decrepit looking boxes of granola bars. The hardware store proved equally fruitful, if a bit more antiquated than he expected, yielding rope, canvas tarps, a cord of firewood, a first aid kit of remarkable size, a car battery, a few padlocks, and four lengths of aluminum chain. The tack store was a very large bonus, with a staff that was friendly, and, for want of a better description, a general mind that most of what was purchased at their store by out of towners and summer home folks wasn't going to be used on horses. Between their smiles, winks, and nods, he managed to find three different spools of leather cord, a bundle of scrap leather, a good whetstone set for his knives, some general rope tackle, hemp twine, and two boxes of ammo. All of which he had to dump into his back seat and passenger side floor.

Sitting on the hood of the car, he pealed and ate two apples that had likely not seen a tree in six months. Methodically, he cut a slice from the fruit, peeled the slice, and then popped the mealy, overly sweet fruit into his mouth. The wind smelled of the ocean, of seaweed and fish and salt and all the other smells of the surf and tide, and its white noise was only pierced by the screams of shore birds wandered away from the sea to reap the bountiful harvest of human refuse and the rare car or truck that breezed by on the small road that ran through town. White was aware, distantly, of the sticky feeling of the juice from the fruits on his fingers, coating them and the blade of one of his small knives as he peeled the slices as he cut them. When the wind gusted, his fingers felt chilled as the sticky liquid evaporated. He frowned.

The wind gusted again, more strongly, refreshing the smell of the sea. White felt something on his cheek, an odd tingling sensation like a fly walking on the flesh, and reached up to scrub the back of his hand across the skin. He blinked, jerking his hand away, as he realized he was crying.

***

Black became aware, dimly, that the constant roar of motion had stopped, and had been stopped for some time. He was chagrined to realize he had drifted off to sleep at some point, lulled by the noise and motion and the boredom of being in the trunk of a car. He cursed himself, however, for allowing himself to relax enough to fall asleep, no matter that it was a comfortable trunk and he had managed no other sleep in well over a day. It was, as trunks he had been in, a fairly nice one, with a nice plush lining and plenty of room. And his last night of sleep felt like a lifetime ago, back in his warm futon in the little apartment.

As his thoughts wandered, his ears listened. He could hear no real noses other than wind occasionally gusting through the cracks in the car's body panels, and the occasional muffled sound of another car passing by. Where were they, he wondered? Had they arrived at their destination, wherever that was? No, the sound of other cars meant they were still somewhere fairly public and populated. White wouldn't risk opening a trunk with a bound prisoner in it in view of someone else. Would he?

Black bit his lower lip in concentration, then swore to himself. All bets were off, he realized. Better to forget, for the time being, all the schooled reactions and behaviors of a well trained field spy that he expected from White, and instead treat this as an unpredictable, untrained civilian captor. Even if he already had broken the first rule of those situations, which was escape as soon as possible. Civilians were dangerous because they were unpredictable and irrational. White was nearly that bad now.

And it's my fault, Black swore at himself. And for that reason, I'm going to lay here like a sack of flour and wait however long it takes. A second thought floated in distantly behind that one: I should have made that bastard eat his own fingers. Black ground his teeth at the thought of the rogue interrogator he had killed, the one responsible for whatever had happened to White. But Black had realized that even if he could kill him again every day for the rest of his life, it would never be enough. And that was why he was willing to do this, and risk his life.

Distantly, he heard a car door open, and then another one. The car shook, as if weight were being added to the back seat. Black froze, and closed his eyes, slowing his breathing. Minutes passed, then the doors slammed shut, then there was silence, followed by a shift in the suspension, and Black braced himself. Nothing happened. He had expected either the car to start or the trunk to be opened. Neither happened.

Curiosity gnawed at him. How long had he been in the trunk of the car? How far away were they from the city? Black wracked his brain, trying to think of where they might be, but his knowledge of the geography of this area was, to his dismay, lacking. He hadn't been on assignment here, only on holdover before reassignment to somewhere else. He was getting sloppy.

A sudden pang of hunger derailed his thoughts, and he realized it had to be pushing twenty-four hours since he had last eaten. The stir-fry he had made from the last of his food stocks was long gone from his stomach, and his body was beginning to realize it. It wasn't impossible to go without food for a day, in fact it was more the norm for him than not on a mission. But, his body had gotten used to two meals a day, and it always took a few weeks to go back into starvation mode. Until then, he would endure the hunger pains. Water, however, was another story.

Unpredictable, irrational, unthinking – he stopped his litany of insults, either aimed at himself or White, he was unsure, when the sound of the car door opening caught his attention. It closed again, this time with the shift of the suspension that was unmistakably someone getting into the car. The engine started.

Wherever they were going, they weren't there yet.


	3. Observation Report - - Record Post Date – xL9∆»B15 – GPS Record cnt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incorporates House D40n Record, Same Time Stamp.

Loose gravel sprayed up from the tires of the car as White navigated the sloping, uphill driveway. He had passed beyond tired, and was now into the adrenalin fueled manic state that he had nearly forgotten the feel of, he had been on inactive duty so long. The back of his throat tasted of rotten metal and stomach acid, but he had managed to keep down the food he had eaten earlier, and surely that must be a good sign, he thought.

The house appeared as he crested the top of the drive, and relief surged though White. Safe. Yes, safe.

Double paned polymer windows, reinforced walls, high security central alarm system, filtered and double processed air system: all these things he had been without for what felt like a life time. But even with them, safety would still depend on his capacity to be awake and aware. He could be, yes, he would have to be.

He parked, gathered up a handgun from his bag, and went to check the house. The security system unlocked the door to his palm and retina, the heavy door then swinging open slowly as he turned the knob. The home office had indeed cleared the property for him, his handler obviously having conveyed the messages to them as soon as possible. But even with the security system, he knew better than to trust that the house was secure.

Room by room he moved, the gun raised and ready as he swept each of the rooms for any unexpected presence. The house smelled empty, but clean, of out gassing polycarbons and carpet shampoo, the lingering odors of a house empty of humans for many months. Bathrooms, bedrooms, den, kitchen, a porch overlooking what anyone else would have seen as a fantastic ocean view, storage closets, pantry, basement – each checked in turn, each found empty. He checked a second time, changing the path he took through the rooms and halls – still empty. Only then did he pocket the gun, sliding the safety with his thumb as he did.

He stood, only for a moment, awash in the pale cream and bland furnishings of the open plan den and kitchen, a numb void inside his skull where his thoughts should be churning.

Car, right. Supplies, right. Yes. Those next.

Each object he purchased went into its place, each item stored carefully where it should normally go, no single thing seemingly out of place. He was just another vacationer, provisioning an unused beach house for the first stay of the season. No one could tell any different if they didn't know. At last, everything was away.

Didn't know. White paused, looking around himself, blinking at the light coming through one of the windows. His mind suddenly lurched, yammering at him, his thoughts screaming that he still had something to do. Yes, he did.

He walked back out to the car, thoughts still a cacophony in his head; and grabbed the few last things from the back seat. Hefting the black duffle, heavy with unseen weight in it, his mind skittering around thoughts of what was inside, he walked into the house and found the furthest back closet from the kitchen. Unceremoniously he threw the duffle in before slamming the door, locking it, and breaking the lock.

Calm numbness blotted out any purpose but his next one, even muffling the chattering conflicting voices of reason and instinct as he moved back through the house. There was one last thing to do.

***

Black's thoughts wandered as he half dozed in the darkness of the car trunk. Images and thoughts flickered through his mind, a mix of dreams and memories that flowed nearly seamlessly into one another.

White's face, peacefully asleep, oblivious to Black's watching presence. The feelings that welled up in Black as he watched that peaceful slumber were a chaotic mess in of themselves. At first it had been a simple game, a test of his skills. And then it had been something more, a craving and need to see White's face untwisted by anger and determination or gloating victory. That stirred up thoughts that Black realized were fundamentally against the nature of what he was. What did he really feel towards White? Was it just simply envy turned to lust by some trick of his mind? At first, he had wanted to believe that, as much against his nature as it was, but the more he had turned the feelings over in his mind, the more he realized that the physical attraction was the least of his problems. White's sleeping face haunted him, and more and more his thoughts had been not of an enemy, but something else.

The tight pull of the thick band of scar tissue that ran from collarbone to his left side brought him back to himself. Lying on his side, arms still pulled back by the now much-loosened bonds of thick twine, like this was starting to irritate the injury. Dull pain spiked through the flesh, reminding him of at least part of why he was in this strange situation. He had baited White into that trap, even if White had set up the snare himself. Idiot, idiot, idiot, he chanted at himself.

A sudden lurch snapped him to full consciousness, his shoulder and hip jarring against the dark interior of the trunk, sending bolts of pain shooting from the already bruised joints. Motion stopped, the noise of the road replaced by the muffled silence of blowing wind whistling through the cracks in the car's frame. The car lurched again, this time the jostling of a door opened and slammed. Time passed, immeasurable even by heartbeats. The suspension creaked, groaned, and then was still, before another door slammed, this one closer to his head. And then there was silence.

Distantly he could hear the cry of sea birds, faint and muffled through the structure of the car's frame and body, and smell the spray of salt. Where were they, Black wondered, still unable to guess how far they had traveled. He had been in and out of full consciousness too frequently for his time sense to be accurate, and he had a sinking feeling not all of those periods of blackness had been real sleep. But the sea meant they were away from the city, and by quite a distance, but even then he couldn't guess any more beyond that.

There was a sound, behind him and towards his feet, which sounded like the slam of a heavy door. Footsteps coming towards the car, and then doors opening, the frame shifting. The footsteps retreated and returned, repeating the process three more times after the first. Then the distant door slam, and he was left to the sounds of the wind again.

He shifted his weight, trying to take pressure off his hip and relieve at least some of the strain on his shoulder, but only managing to make himself more uncomfortable. He didn't dare take the bonds completely off, but at this rate he was thinking he might have to.

He started at the sound of the car door opening, not having heard the crunch of boots on gravel as he had the previous times. The vehicle lurched as if being put into gear, but the motor did not start, and distantly Black almost thought he could hear the jangle of keys. The door slammed shut, followed by a pause, then there was a thump on the trunk above his head.

Black froze.

The car began to move, slowly at first, the crunch of tires on gravel louder than the wind. It was rolling forward, gaining momentum, and Black felt his stomach lurch as he realized what must be about to happen. A seemingly sympathetic lurch from the car followed the lurch in his gut as first the front wheels, then the back, left solid ground, enough momentum gained that it still retained forward momentum even as Black felt the strangling hands of gravity grab for its mass and begin pulling it down.


	4. Observation Report - - Record Post Date – xL9∆»B15/A17 – House D40n Record

White smiled, the expression twisting up the corners of his mouth but not touching his eyes, as he watched the car sail almost effortlessly over the rocky ledge. He heard the grating sound of metal against stone, once, twice, and then the satisfying crash as the car hit the surface of the sea below. Stepping to the edge, he looked down and saw the still mostly intact wreckage, nose down in the surf, sinking slowly. It looked to have landed once on its roof, crushing in the windows, and once slightly along a side, before sliding down into the water. The broken windows only sped the rate at which the seawater rushed into the car, flooding it and drowning it.

White stood and watched until he saw the trunk of the car vanish under the waves, then turned and walked back across the drive to the house. He should have been feeling pride, satisfaction, the thrill of a kill – but all he felt was numb and empty. Exhaustion, he told himself as he paced into the kitchen and then living room, that was all that was wrong. He'd been through hell and back in the last two days, of course he was tired.

Except it was more than that. He'd been tired before, he'd been exhausted from escapes before, and this was so much more than that. He'd just dropped his rival, unconscious and tired up in the trunk of his car, off a cliff and into the ocean, and seen the car sink. He should be thrilled, and calling his handler to have a team come to confirm the kill. How many times had he come so close to this, how many times had he dreamed about this?

Why was all he could think of doing then crawling into a dark room to hide? Why was his mind now alternating between images of Black's face, that strange expression on it, and numb darkness. If his government found out he had broken down like that, they would section him and "retire" him. He'd seen it happen to others who had been compromised, and he couldn't face that. Drugged, confined, and then treated, left not much more than a drooling shell after the fact: except, well, maybe it would be better than …

White blinked, staring at the dent in the dry wall in front of him, feeling the pain lance through his hand and up his arm. He looked, somewhat disbelieving, at his hand, at the split skin over his knuckles and the already swelling bruises, and then back at the wall, now marked with his blood and slightly caved in where his fist had impacted the surface. Had he just done that? He shook his head, numbness clouding his thoughts. Sleep, that was all he needed was sleep.

His body went into near automatic, guiding him through the things he knew he should do before he slept. He fumbled with things which should have been simple, such as his perimeter check of the doors and windows, even to the point that he made himself postpone cleaning and reloading his gun for fear that he would injure himself or damage it in the process. Setting the alarm system took him three tries, even with the familiar interface it presented, and by the time he had it armed he could feel the frustration bubbling into anger. That's irrational, his mind said, but it was a distant echo to thoughts which seemed at once empty and a swirl of chaos. After a few fumbling attempts to remove his shoes, he gave up, throwing himself on the couch in the main room rather than try to secure a bedroom and make himself comfortable there.

White was asleep before the sun was fully set.

* * *

The image is sharp, crisp and clear despite having been filmed in nearly total darkness: it speaks to decades of technological development aimed purely at information gathering and security. In the stark relief of the slight grain of the photocathode's image a figure is clearly visible, hunched and bedraggled looking, as it enters the house and crouches quickly behind the closest cover – an innocent side table plays an unwitting role in a breaking and entering. He crouches, hiding, waiting for alarms or traps to spring.

The alarms do not sound, not even the silent one, and the motion sensors passively notice the figure as it crouches: neither has been properly armed to alert to intrusions. The only sensors that notice his entrance are the cameras, hidden in corners and ceilings, behind mirrors and under tables, and they watch with passive, motion sensitive, low light filtered eyes. Moments pass. The figure stands, slowly, unfolding from his crouch stiffly, as if every joint hurts, as if every motion lances pain through him.

One camera, its resolution and sensitivity particularly acute thanks to active infrared, takes close notice of the intruder, imaging him and tracking his movements with its quiet, dark eye, hidden behind a smoke detector. It zooms in, tracking his motion, recording as it was designed to do. The figure is tall, dark haired in the low light, his skin pale in contrast with ragged black pants and a disheveled white shirt. His feet are bare, and seem cut and bruised – he winces with each step, even across the plush carpeting. Dark eyes, hidden in low light shadow, look up, almost directly at the silent eye watching him: the intruder knows it is there, but does not care, says his expression. The eyes flash silver in the IR light which illuminates the image.

He scans the room, body still, yet his posture gives away the trained gaze which scans every corner. He pauses, senses focusing on a single point half way across the room. He is looking at a couch, centered in the main room, though the camera can only see the back of it. He limps slowly, one foot dragging slightly, each step painful, towards the couch. There is no audio track to record the sounds he makes as he moves, but one can imagine the quite sucking in of breath, the grunt and wince as abused joints and flesh are forced beyond their limits. But he does not pause, not even once, in his slow trek across the living space.

He reaches the couch, looking down at whatever is on it, the camera in the kitchen ceiling cannot see. But another can, mounted under an end table near the sliding glass doors. Its resolution is not as fine as the larger unit, but it is much closer, and its photocathode is much more sensitive at these close distances. It sees the prone figure, still fully dressed, curled into the cushions of the couch. He sleeps, but poorly, twitching and moving as if caught in a dream. The other watches, just within the frame of the camera's eye, his hands clench and unclench slowly as if he fights with impulses within himself. Anger? Rage? Some emotion stirs him, but his face is unreadable.

The figure on the couch stirs in its sleep again, head turning sharply, lips moving, soundless to the deaf camera, impossible to read as they are obscured too quickly. But the other hears, his entire form tenses, frozen in a moment of shock and indecision. And then he moves, suddenly swift and uncaring for his pains, nearly falling to his knees beside the couch, hands reaching for the sleeping face of the other. There is no hesitation, no moment of indecision now, and he touches the other, hands trembling as they sooth over hair and shoulders.

The other settles, soothed in his sleep for a moment. And then he is awake, a flurry of movement, limbs clad in white, hands reaching and clasping. His movements are clumsy, uncourdinated. Any other time had he tried to catch the other like this, he would have failed. But the other simply submits, letting him grab wrists, rolling, pinning him to the floor with a clumsy body weight pin.

The pale face twists into a snarl, anger and confusion clouding it. The camera can clearly see the movement of his lips this time. "Why aren't you dead?" He raises a fist, holding the violence of the blow back by pure will alone.

Passive, restrained not by the hold but by his own motives, the other looks up and answers.

"Because I love you."

The blow never lands.


	5. An Interlude of Insanity

This is the moment its decided: the thought floats through Black's mind like a bit of seaweed in tide churned dark water. Looming over him, White looks down at him with a face that is a mixture of too many emotions for Black to read in his exhausted state. Formed and coherent thoughts are beyond him now, and have been since he finally pulled himself over the cliff edge with every muscle screaming, every joint aching, and his head ringing. But the litany that ran through his mind as he climbed still lingers - the thoughts that kept him moving hand over hand up the tide slick stones - and now it guides him even when reason has abandoned him.

He fights every instinct and lays still, breathing slowly and deeply, letting White keep him pinned by his wrists and chest; his rival's strong legs straddling his aching, bruised ribs and a bone grinding grip around his crossed wrists. There is a fevered heat in those limbs where they touch him, searing against seawater chilled flesh and aching muscles, and for a moment this overwhelms even his deepest instincts: he wants that touch, but not like this. A second tier of instinct guides him, something deeper than training and survival, and he feels the postures of submission shift his body in subtle ways. He turns his face away slightly, eyes partly closing, jaw raised to expose his throat. Tension eases out of his limbs, offering no resistance and no sign of intention to fight or run. He feels smaller, somehow, as if every shift of his body has made him less than he is, trying to broadcast that, whatever he might be, he is not a threat, and he will not resist or fight.

Do it. Kill me now, White. The words bubble through the darkness of exhaustion, half a dare, half a wish, but they don't leave his throat. He's said all he intends to say, said the words that had to be said: he has no more energy for words.

In his hopes and wishes, the raised fist falls, smashing into flesh and bone. He aches for the hand that would grab his throat to break it, or squeeze the air from him; he wishes for the blade to find flesh and drink his blood. These things would mean he was wrong, that everything was alright, that he wasn't at fault. And they would mean all these thoughts in his head were meaningless, that he did not really feel these things. Pain and death: these things are normal to him. But there is no pain, no merciful darkness. The hand that holds his wrists has loosened slightly, enough that he could be free of it even with his bones aching and fingers torn raw from sharp stones. If the terrified, shivering form that he had held in the floor of his bathroom had not been confirmation enough, now he knows to his core that White is broken. And now he knows that all that he has felt, these feelings he's tried to cope with, are completely real. Now he is afraid.

A sudden pressure on his chest and then the release of his hands from the loose grip makes him look up, and he sees White pushing himself to his feet, releasing him from the pin. White looks down at him, eyes invisible in the dim light, and then is gone from his line of sight. Sitting up is a challenge, and all Black can manage is to prop himself up on sore and abrased elbows to try to follow White's movements. Even this makes his head spin and it is all he can do not to collapse back to the floor. White has walked away, but not far, just past the end of the couch, and looks down at his prone rival. Again, the wish, the hope, that White will show some sign of normality, some sign of the trained killer that he should be, and put everything back to normal between them, bubbles through the clouds of Black's mind. Nothing comes, only that unreadable face looking at him. Then he turns away, walks away, turning an exposed back to Black who, even if he had wanted to, is too exhausted to attack.

The next motion is swift, nearly too swift for Black's eyes to catch in the gloom. White's fist comes up again, a solid left cross that moves with all the snake like speed that White has at his finest. The sound it makes at it impacts the plaster is so sudden and so loud that Black doesn't even consciously hear the sound at first, all he knows is the impact of air on eardrums. And then White is looking around, confusion on his face, and then down at his bleeding fist with an expression that chills Black to the bone. His face is empty and lost, confusion swelling to rage across the features, then consumed again in that unreadable expression as his attention refocuses in Black's direction.

All Black can think of are the hours he sat watching the rogue agent die, the hours he sat next to the man as he took one sharp blade to various parts of his body. First fingertips, then ears a piece at a time, then the tip of his nose, and on from there; when it had been over there had really been little left that made his face or body recognizable that was not sitting in a small pile beside Black's boots. He can remember first the screams, then the groans as blood loss and pain of the bullet working its way into his guts had made screaming impossible, then finally the blank, empty look of a brain gone numb from pain and lack of oxygen. He sees a shadow of that in White's face, the empty, dead look of broken thoughts and a mind stumbling over itself.

All my fault.


End file.
